


Mother and Son

by pastelkanan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Childhood Memories, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, I admittedly don’t know if I should label this as light angst or full angst so I did both, Light Angst, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 16:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12369546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelkanan/pseuds/pastelkanan
Summary: Haggar looks back on the woman she once was. Lotor wonders just how she got here.They both wonder what could have been.





	Mother and Son

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first new fic in awhile yikes,,,,, have fun with this one lmao

   Haggar barely remembered the face staring back at her. Had she truly been that beautiful once? She could not remember what it was like to look down at her hands and see skin of any color but purple, what it was like to brush through hair any color but white, or what it was like to be… Altean. Altea was destroyed long ago, along with its people and any chance of her returning to the person she once was. Now headaches formed as she remembered the late nights and mindbending research she had done on the comet that crashed into Daibazaal and the rift it had brought with it, now phantom pains shot through her body as she remembered the way her prolonged exposure to the quintessence that seeped through the rift had altered her body, her mind, her very _being_.

   She could remember the pain. She could not remember the day that she ceased to be Honerva and became Haggar. 

   She reached up and touched her face. Her hand, purple with long, bony fingers and claw-like nails, stood in a stark contrast to the rest of her face. Her breath came unevenly as she stared, as she tried to understand why she had become what she now was. The face in the reflection… it was no longer hers. Honerva was a phantom of the past, a long dead being that could never be brought back. She knew that. And yet, staring into Honerva’s eyes, Haggar wondered what might have been if she and Zarkon had simply let the rift be. What might have happened if they had backed away instead of pushing further.

   She would still be Honerva. Zarkon would still be Zarkon, Paladin of the Black Lion. They would not be Haggar and Zarkon, ruler of the Galra Empire. No, no. They wouldn’t even still be an alchemist and a paladin. They would be long gone, a paragraph in a history book, for no ordinary being lived for ten thousand years.

   Perhaps their marriage would have been a happier one, a strong relationship based on admiration and trust instead. She would have stayed by his side until the very end of their lives instead of donning a hooded cloak and hiding her face as she worked witchcraft for him from within the shadows. When it came time to have a child, they would have done it the right way. Lotor would have been born from a place of love instead of a place of need for an heir. He would have known the warm embrace of a loving mother, the affectionate pats on the back from a devoted father. Lotor, her son, would have been the most precious thing in the universe. 

   She heard the approach of one of her druids and let the reflection fall away as she became Haggar once again. This was not her doing, nor was it fault. There was never the time to have a _family_. An heir to the throne had to be produced, but said heir did not have to be a beloved member of the family. There was no room for emotion when it came to the management of the Empire. There was no time to waste on staring at a reflection of who she had once been while wondering what _could_ have been if things had gone differently. 

   Honerva was gone and Haggar was all that remained. The Empire needed Haggar’s work and her loyalty.

   And she would deliver.

 

—

 

    _Who was she before all of this?_

   The question had plagued Lotor since childhood. He had been taught that his emotions meant nothing, that it didn’t matter how he felt so long as he stayed true to the Empire and never strayed from his course. He was not a son, he was told. He had never been a son. He was an heir, nothing more. Nothing but a successor to the throne. Nothing but an insurance policy for his parents.

   He had listened. He had obeyed. For so long, he stuck to the path had been decided for him at birth. He was the heir to the throne of the Empire. He was not allowed to look at other children playing with their parents and wish that he had the same. He was not allowed to dream up any other life besides the one that had been outlined for him. He was not allowed to be anyone or anything but Zarkon’s heir. He was not a person.

   He was just a cog in the Empire’s machine.

   How could anyone have truly expected that it would always be so? The day finally came where he had had enough. He remembered it vividly, the moment that he stood up to his sorry excuse of a _father_ and said that he would no longer be just a toy to him, just a little plaything to be put through the wringer until the day came that he was to take his father’s place on the throne. And he remembered the fury in Zarkon’s eyes and the sting of his blows. He remembered being pushed to the ground and being told that he needed to learn his place. Sometimes, late at night when he was on the edge of sleep, he could still hear his father saying that, if Lotor was going to be anything less than completely loyal and obedient, he could live in exile until he learned his lesson.

   And his mother? His mother had done nothing. She looked on in apathy, face devoid of any emotion. She didn’t care what happened to Lotor, what happened to her _son_ , so long as Zarkon was kept content by everything going his way. While Lotor picked himself up and dusted himself off, Haggar did nothing but silently taking Zarkon’s side. She did not come to see him as he gathered his things from his chambers and headed to the hanger. She did not worry about his emotional state. No one did. After all, he was an heir. Not a person.

   He had worked hard to forget. He had spent all those years making his own path, picking up his generals along the way. When he had been summoned out of exile and told that his father lay on his deathbed, that it was finally time for Lotor to be the Emperor he had been raised to be, he had decided that he would be a different kind of ruler than his father. He _was_ a different kind of ruler. One that his mother did not approve of. One that angered his father when he awoke once again.

   Looking at her now, the question resurfaced. Who had she been? What had she been like? Was there another reality out there in which she had remained Honerva, the brilliant and beautiful Altean alchemist, instead of becoming Haggar, a near slave to Zarkon and not half of what a mother should be? Was there a reality where… where things had been happier? Was there any version of her that would return a hug from her son instead of shoving him away?

   As a child, he had been taught to swallow his emotions and focus on his mission. The method of teaching that he had once thought of as a curse now served as a blessing. He shoved those feelings and questions down deep, telling himself that it didn’t matter who she had been or what their relationship could have been. She didn’t love him. She never had. She was not his mother.

   This time when he was sent away, he did not hope for any comforting words from her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on twitter at https://twitter.com/alifeinpastels xoxo


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